The crisis of Europa

The largest group most people can think of themselves as belonging to is the nation-state. Here, even in the midst of great diversity, a certain level of common interest and identity is given: the land we share, the laws that govern our lives, the police and armed forces that protect us, our history, our culture. When circumstances change drastically for the nation-state — a famine, a belligerent neighbor, a loss of empire, the discovery of huge natural resources — there is often an intensification of identity, albeit in a process of change.

Unless of course the state was largely an invented entity with no strong internal ties. Then change can bring break-up and a return to older, stronger identities. As it did in Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. As it threatens to do in Great Britain or Spain.

What about international organizations? The USSR collapsed under the pressure of economic change and a loss of ideological purpose. It had been imposed from Moscow. The Warsaw Pact went with it. Since then NATO has looked like a military alliance dangerously in need of a cause. Everything knocks on. Even victory can be traumatic. Only organizations with a clear and necessary role in world affairs — the United Nations, the World Bank — seem guaranteed a long life, however badly they perform. Even if they were to fold, they would, arguably, soon reappear in some new manifestation. They oil the wheels of world governance. Somebody has to.

What about the European Union?

Is it or is it not the most unwieldy, cumbersome, ill-defined and confused organization in the world? A monster so torn with internal contradiction it seems impossible it can survive; at the same time such a huge and determining presence in the lives of 500 million people that its demise would be dense with consequence for centuries. And likely bloody.

How was this improbable hybrid born? Neither state nor federation, yet sucking sovereignty from all its members, it defies definition. Those of us who live in it are utterly bemused; all we can say with certainty is that it is not a union in any meaningful sense of that word, and that it is European only in the sense that its 28 members are European, but not because it is coextensive with Europe, let alone congruent with any myth of what Europe might mean or have meant. If the designation “Europa” conjures up antique intimations of beauty, purpose and cultural strength, then it has nothing to do with the European Union.

In the past, new sovereign entities have formed in response to the threat that gives them identity. Such, arguably, was the basis of Protestant Great Britain as it fought Catholic France and Europe time and again through the 17th and 18th centuries. Empires can form on the back of idealism, greed, missionary enthusiasms, ethnic confidence and technological advantage. Such was the colonial period; rapacious national groups that believed absolutely in their right to grab a slice of history. However despicable, they had energy and purpose. People knew what they were up to.

The European Union also formed in response to a threat. But the enemy was within and the disaster had already happened. France and Germany must never again go to war. Dangerous instincts must be quelled forever. The European Coal and Steel Community, the Common Market, the European Community, were all formed to curb internal competition and internecine enmity, in an atmosphere of collective self-castigation. It was understandable. Millions had died. Rather than looking to seize “a place in the sun,” the organizations’ members were turned inward in anxious remorse; rather than seeking a commanding role on history’s stage, they sought to put an end to history. Europe would be sufficient to itself. Large enough to trade within itself, to feed itself; so extensive as to be beyond plausible military threat from without. So judicious and benign as never to become a threat itself. There would be no more war.

Adolf Hitler with with leader of the SS Heinrich Himmler and other high ranking officers of his general staff

Amid the penitential determination to be good, the one crude positive energy was economic gain. We would have free trade within and fierce protectionism without. Greed is a quality you can rely on. Europe would be righteous, peaceful, and above all wealthy. Other European nations were invited to come inside the trade barriers and join the party, but to do so they had to lower their proud flags, fold away their bright military uniforms, put aside the delirium of national destiny that inflicted so much damage in the past. To join the EU was not a gain in identity, but a loss, a regrettable necessity, in order to seem virtuous, in order to join the cartel.

This is grossly simplified. Each nation had its history, for each nation the flag-lowering meant something different. The Italians, whose constitution seems designed to prevent them ever agreeing on anything, signed up to the euro with a huge sigh of relief; hopefully they would never again have to decide monetary policy for themselves. How badly that fantasy has backfired. Poland and the Eastern nations were running for shelter from Russia, looking to grow rich fast, but had no serious intention of surrendering their newfound sovereignty. Hence the recent victory of the Euroskeptic right in Poland.

But at first it did work wonderfully. France and Germany became the best of friends. Not a saber has rattled for 50 years. It’s true we all stood by while the Slavs slaughtered each other in their thousands, but we European Union members didn’t do anything wrong. We are good folks. We just find it difficult when anyone interrupts our moneymaking. We find it hard to assume responsibility. Meantime citizens can move freely around the EU. Nineteen states use the same currency. These are huge achievements. We hold them dear.
Yet no collective identity has grown out of this. Not a shred. In this respect the Union has failed utterly. I know of no one for whom the idea of going to war for Europe, dying for

Europe, would not be a joke. A caprice, a fantasy. There is no respect for the European Parliament, no affection for Brussels or Strasbourg. And the dream of a single European state, or even a European federation, has faded. The long economic crisis of recent years has exposed the radical differences between the member economies and raised huge questions about the euro. Rather than present itself as a source of wealth or an ideological inspiration, the Union is now a tiresome, sometimes tyrannical accountant telling us what we can and cannot spend, what taxes we must pay, how low our pensions must be. And a German accountant at that.

Because suddenly it’s clear to everyone that the one true center of power in the EU is Berlin. The old farce of collective decision-making is over. It took too long. Everything was compromise and fudge. When decisions have to be made fast, Germany makes them. Germany calls the shots. Yet no one is remotely interested in German culture. Huge numbers of novels and films are brought in from the U.S., the Anglophone world, but not from Germany. We are falling under Germany’s sway, without the slightest interest in how Germany lives, what Germany thinks. Better Game of Thrones, better the latest Hollywood blockbusters. We know more about the American primaries than the German elections, or indeed the European parliamentary elections which we ourselves vote in. We are more likely to look at the New York Times than the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Ideologically, globalization has swept away the illusion of European identity. From the coast of Puglia, Italians can see Albania on the horizon, but it is far more likely they will travel to New York than Tirana. With Germany and France at the core of the Union, nevertheless the lingua franca is English, the language of the country most skeptical about its EU membership. So the vast majority of European schoolchildren (more than 95 percent) acquire a second language that draws them toward a culture hostile to the European ideal. Or at least indifferent. How can a European identity flourish in these circumstances? Meantime France, which must have hoped its once-global language would prevail in the Union, languishes under a kind of enchantment, apparently unable to acknowledge how profoundly the world has changed.

In response to war and unemployment, people move. Europe is overwhelmed with migrants who almost all want to go to Berlin or London, and to a lesser degree Paris. They are a source of deep division. And European citizens themselves are heading in droves to Berlin and London. The free movement of citizens means the strengthening of the strong, the attraction of young, able-bodied, well-educated citizens to the dynamic centers of power. Spanish and Italian graduates are packing their bags as I write. On the streets of the British and German capitals the thrill of new energy, new blood, cultural vitality, is tangible, electric. Milan, for all its expo, is tired and tame in comparison. Rome is chaotic, overwhelmed with corruption scandals.

Elsewhere, the desired stability has become stagnation. Instead of putting an end to history we are in thrall to it. Surrendering economic sovereignty to Brussels, the weaker countries reveled in their newfound irresponsibility, then woke up to creeping poverty and a terrible loss of control over their lives. The whole eurozone paid the price of German obsession with monetary severity, waiting ruinous years to join the U.S. and Britain in the quantitative easing that has finally kick-started a weak recovery. But the damage has been done. From being a prosperous bandwagon you might want to fall in with, Europe has become a straitjacket.

Above all we discover that the nation-state is in rude health.

With all their internal problems, the British, French, Germans, Spanish, Italians, Greeks, Belgians, Dutch, Poles, Romanians, and so on enjoy strong feelings of collective identity. The deep dye of nationality has not washed out in the melting pot. Quite the contrary. In the constant battle to push the Union this way and that, countries have become more aware of their differences and special interests. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign policy. Pacifist by inspiration, the EU is unable even to threaten its enemies with a response. It appoints “foreign ministers” who are comically lightweight. There is not even a pretense of seriousness. Deprived of hegemony in the Union, France discovers its old identity when it acts unilaterally outside of it. Britain never planned to do anything else. Economically in the driving seat, Germany still finds any warlike posturing unthinkable. Confusion. Perhaps the situation was fine while Russia was licking its post-USSR wounds. With Putin rampant it looks like folly.

Where to then? Dismantling the whole is unthinkable. Going on as we are likewise. None of the present European leaders would dream up the EU if it wasn’t there — that mood is gone, and to date none of them has told us what they want to do to bring it into line with a world that is utterly changed and moving very fast. What is the purpose of a European Parliament when we vote for it according to national party lines and are absolutely oblivious as to what it might or might not do once our vote is cast? Is it just a fig leaf for democratic process, while one nation makes the decisions for all? Is the EU in fact a German empire by default? Certainly it has begun to feel like that where I live in Italy, and no doubt even more so in Greece.

But what about Britain? It wants renegotiation, and will hold a referendum. The British attitude to Europe from start to finish has been opportunistic and pragmatic, never idealistic. Uninvited, they joined (after two applications were rejected) because it made sense commercially. They didn’t join the euro because it did not make sense. They resent every cession of sovereignty that isn’t strictly necessary for making money, and many that are necessary. Just trying to imagine the details of these renegotiations brings on a headache. Thinking of how the process might fit in with the needs of different leaders of different political credos to get themselves reelected in different countries at different times is stupefying. All the same, renegotiation does offer a chance for a few leaders of common sense and good will finally to get to grips with what the EU is for and what sort of positive collective identity it expresses, if any. If that doesn’t happen, which seems by far the more likely scenario, then we will be looking at the beginning of the end.

Tim Parks is the author of many novels, including “Europa” (Arcade Publishing, 1998), translations, and works of nonfiction. His latest book is “Where I’m Reading From, The Changing World of Books” (New York Review of Books, 2015). He is also a professor of literature at IULM University.